Berlin – Artist’s text
Berlin. My first meeting with the city was like a pendulum – I saw the houses and the monuments
which still had the signs of the terrible war that was. For the first time I felt in an almost physical
sense what had taken place there, how immense and crazy that war had been, and what suffering had
been caused to the people – Jews, Germans, and others.
Like a pretty garment that drapes the contours of the body,it seems that Europe of today doesn’t reveal
to the outside observer all that took place less than half a century ago in it’s beautiful capitals. The
disparity between what is visible and what is invisible gave birth to a series of works based on
photographs which I took in Berlin, and enlarged on canvas. The works relate to the process of
breaking down and reassembling, what is visible and invisible, civilized and chaotic.
I chose to use a heavy canvas, and, as a tailor I cut and sewed, opening windows,
sewing on buttons, and zippers, recreating the pictures.
The photograph captured by pressing the button on the camera was unable to tell the complex
story of the place that had witnessed so many moments and events.
My Number
These are two works in which my arm is photographed. In the one, I embroidered 5 houses,
as the number of my family members. The arm looks like a mountain at whose foothills
the houses stand. On the other arm, scenes of small people running are embroidered. The
people are void of identity or direction.
The works deal with an identification engraved on the body.
In meeting with concentration camp survivors I encountered the paradox between the connection
and identity that many of them feel towards the number engraved on their arm.
Houses and Horses
These are works in oil on material, describing stereotypes of houses and horses, which repeat themselves,
attempting to form a new order.
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